For those who think emergence is dying or will go away, you weren’t here in Albuquerque. This Emerging Church conference was in some ways similar to the New Conspirators conference a year ago in that it was designed to bring different voices together. These included Phyllis Tickle, Brian McLaren, Richard Rohr (the host), Shane Claiborne, and Alexie Torres Fleming…

The first thing I noticed about the conference is that there were A LOT of people (over 900) and they were predominantly of the boomer generation or older. This was not your Guiness swilling, cool glasses wearing, hip, urban crowd. This was your grandpas and grandmas, parents and friends. The average age in the room was at least 50. And what this said to me is that the conversation is changing. It’s growing beyond the walls of the traditional group that started it. (Online source)

Well now, I’m not exactly sure how it was that Brink managed to take the average age of “the room”; and, I guess we’re just going to have to agree to disagree that there was anything remotely “traditional” concerning the group that “started” this Emergent rebellion against Sola Scriptura. The main reason I bring the above to your attention is to warn you that when Brink says this “conversation” [read: rebellion] is “growing beyond” the dens in which it was hatched he is, indeed, dead-on-target.

Case in point; once Rob Bell, the Elvis of the Emerging Church, was somewhat limited as to his reach into mainstream evangelicalism. All the while denying he was/is part of the Emerg/ing/ent Church — right; and I’m in line to be the next Pope — Bell’s mystic musings were slowly becoming staples in many evangelical youth groups. However, his main emerging infection was still largely limited to some of the more ignorant evangelical churches using his Nooma DVDs in their young adult classes, etc.

But, as that noted pop philosopher Robert Zimmerman—straight outta Hibbing, MN—would once warble, “The times they are a-changin’.” And that they are; a couple of years ago prominent teachers within the Emerging/ent rebellion against the final authority of God’s Word, e.g. Tony Jones and his own aperient Emergence pastor Doug Pagitt and their emerging ilk, were metastasized throughout the mainstream of the evangelical community when they were featured at the Zondervan National Pastors Conference.

Sadly, now Zondervan has officially placed their blessing upon Rob Bell by featuring him this year as a main speaker at NPC 2009 General Session 3. You can’t say we haven’t tried to warn you that evangelicalism is in an accelerating apostasy. Don’t wanna believe me? It’s cool; then here’s just a little taste of Dr. Walter Martin, founder of the Christian Research Institute and the only “Bible Answer Man,” for ya circa 1985:

For any person who does not know that today in the United States, and in denominational structures world-around, we are in an accelerating apostasy does not know—I repeat—does not know, what’s going on. (Cult of Liberalism, CD Rom, available from Walter Martin Religious InfoNet)